The real estate agent stopped his car outside the apartment complex where the young couple lived. They were going with him to look at houses. With a broad smile he opened the car door and let them in. He thought they were both very nice. The husband was in his early thirties; his face suggested a firm character and the ability to get ahead in the world. The wife, who was very pregnant, didn’t say much. She seemed to be floating on a pink cloud of infatuation and was full of submissive wonder at anything to do with this business, which she didn’t understand at all. An easy couple. An inheritance had fallen into their laps, the size of which he was well aware. In general – he started the car – people who didn’t make waves. The man was evidently rather particular, but the agent liked young people who had their heads on straight.

‘We’ll drive to Bregnerød today,’ he said. ‘I have something there that will be just the thing for you. Four rooms, a den, central heating, and a charming yard. Don’t pay attention to the fact it seems a bit empty. The wife is divorced and has to sell quickly. All she cares about is the down payment.’

‘How much does she want?’ asked the husband, who also cared only about the down payment.

‘Twenty-five thousand.’ He tapped the ash from his cigar. ‘But she’ll go lower.’

‘Does she have children?’ asked the wife, leaning her head against her husband’s shoulder while turning one of the buttons on his coat.

‘You can say that again.’

The agent gave a resounding laugh.

‘Three of them. One still in a crib.’

‘Is the furnace good?’ asked the husband. He was learning about the vulnerable parts of a house.

‘Everything’s first class. The husband just ran off.’

‘Oh,’ she cried sympathetically, ‘from three children!’

She glanced up at her husband. He would never do that, she thought. The child inside her moved, and her oval face took on a sweet, trance-like expression.

Her husband determined, with a certain distaste, that the real estate agent’s collar was sprinkled with gray dandruff. When he advanced to a higher position in his company, he would pay attention to little things like that, and people with top-notch references wouldn’t understand why they had been passed over. The thought appealed to him.

The car slipped out of the city, through the suburban housing developments. She smiled at the children playing. In less than a month she would be adjusting her baby carriage on a lawn, so the sun wouldn’t shine on the little one’s face. Her yard. Her baby. They would have to make up their minds soon.

‘I hope you like this house,’ she said.